A Grave Encounter
by angelique-anja
Summary: The weeks after his loss are hard and Reese tries to push away from his friends, but a chance encounter during an early morning visit to the grave site might just help him get his emotions in check and remind him of his place in the world. SPOILERS 3x9.


_So, I'm terrible with spoilers. I always need to know what's happening in my favourite shows and I've managed to piece together what happened on the latest POI. Which I'm not looking forward to the actual episode when it airs here. Anyway, this was just something that came to mind when thinking about how Reese would behave in the aftermath. Still, I don't think he would listen to Finch or anyone else in their little band of heroes, so I wanted to introduce him to a kindred spirit. _

_I don't own POI or any of their characters, but I do own my own original ones. So, enjoy, as best as you can!_

_Anja.x_

**A Grave Encounter**

He knelt and placed the flowers reverently under her name. It was his weekly ritual, the only thing he could really do other than watching Taylor, just as she'd asked him to do. It didn't erase the fact that she was gone, that she was never coming back, but he didn't know what else to do for her. He still worked the numbers… When he picked up his phone. Like now, as he ignored it.

He probably owed Finch and Shaw and apology or two… or ten… for his behaviour in recent weeks, but he was hurting and he was on a precipice of heading back down that road he'd been on the day he'd first met her. He thought of the bullet he'd given her in the morgue, before his heart had been ripped from his chest in that alleyway. He wished he had it with him now.

He looked back at his phone, wondering why Finch was calling. It was far too early in the morning for the man to be awake, let alone contacting him. Still, he decided he didn't care.

He let his eyes wounder over the graveyard, taking in everything as he usually did. Just because his world had ended, didn't mean the rest of the world had stop turning. To his surprise, he spotted someone else sitting by as gravesite. The woman was sitting cross legged before a stone and appeared to be talking to it. More accurately she probably imagined the other person was there to hear her, but from here it was odd. Still, it was probably no different from the one sided conversations he'd had with Joss in recent weeks.

The woman had also placed flowers by the grave. It looked older then the sparkling marble of Joss's stone, perhaps it was an anniversary for the woman. He started to turn back to Joss, tell her about the other woman, they'd enjoyed people watching, when he spotted more people in the area. They were headed towards the woman. He noticed the tell-tale movement of someone reaching for a gun. John went for his own.

The woman it appeared, had noticed them as well. While she hadn't gotten up from her position, she was no longer cross legged on the floor, but crouched. John made his way towards her, crouched down to keep cover behind the stones of the dead. Someone else had obviously had the same thought as him, because the woman was suddenly up and attacking a man who'd attempted to jump her. John watched with interest as she fought. He could see the skill. She'd had training, yet her style was a mess. He saw elements from various styles, and then she got dirty, and he imagined her fighting on the streets.

What was someone like her doing sitting at a grave in a graveyard set aside for fallen law enforcement? He wondered. He returned his gaze to the assailant he'd seen with the gun, he didn't have a shot as she fought with his friend, but John waited. He had a feeling the woman would win and when she did, the second man would take the shot.

As predicted the hand to hand combat came to an end and the man fell to the floor groaning in pain. John saw the second man raise his weapon.

John raised himself up. "Gun!" he called to the woman, she ducked as a shot flew over her head and John fired on the shooter. He caught the man square in the chest and he went down. The woman stood back up and looked at him.

John nodded to her and begun to walk away, back to Joss.

"Whoah!" The woman called after him and he stopped. "Don't walk away. You can't just walk away after saving my life like that!" she told him. She had a commanding presence when not fighting he realised. Odd fighting skills or not, he realised that this woman was most likely a cop, but her accent… She was most definitely not from the NYPD.

"You would have been fine," he assured her.

"I never spotted the shooter," she replied walking up to him. "So, thank you."

He smiled unwillingly. "You're welcome."

She cocked her head to the side. "So…" she glanced around. "What's a well-dressed guy like you doing in a place like this, this early in the morning?" she asked.

John regarded her. "Could ask you the same question," he replied.

She shrugged. "I have limited time before I go home. Not really enough hours in the respectable hours of the day to get everything done."

John actually chuckled at that. "I know what you mean," he replied. "I was… I was visiting a friend…" he finally answered her original question.

She nodded. "Yeah… Me too…" She took a deep breath and glanced back at the gravesite she'd been sitting at, then looked back at him. "I'm Lu," she held her hand out to him.

"John," he replied, taking the proffered hand. "Your friend a cop?"

"He was FBI," she replied. "Your friend?"

"NYPD."

She took in the red eyes, the darkened rims and the growth of stubble. "Recent?" she asked gently.

"About a month," he told her.

She nodded knowingly. "That's a hard time," she commented and he noticed that she seemed to grow distant. "You still expect to see his name on your caller ID… or to turn around and see him standing there… Or… You… you think you see him, everywhere you go…"

"And everything reminds you of her," John added.

She nodded. "But it's never him… And it hits you all over again that they're gone…"

"And they're never coming back…" he added softly.

"It's the worst time," she repeated.

"I wish it would just go…"

"C'mon," Lu said and led him away from where they stood. She led him to a seat that seemed to overlook both gravestones and sat down.

John looked sideways at her. Ravel black hair flew around her face, escaping from the plait she'd had it done up in and he noticed that beneath the winter jacket she had on, she was wearing a suit. "How long has it been for you?"

"J.T's been gone for ten years," she replied. "Line of duty shooting… And I was half a world away at the time."

"Joss was shot in front of me…" John said slowly. "She died… She died in my arms…"

Lu looked up at him. "I'm sorry," she replied. It was too clichéd to say that he'd had a chance to say goodbye. Neither being there or not being there made either of them feel better. "Were you…" she wasn't quite sure what she wanted to ask, but he seemed to understand.

"She saved me," he replied. "I don't really know what we were."

"It's good to have someone like that…" she replied. "Someone who can pull you from the dark moments and make you see the light."

"Did J.T do that for you?"

She nodded. "I'd have managed… But he added a brightness to my days that I hadn't known at the time."

John did some quick calculations. The woman wasn't by any means old. Maybe early thirties at most. If the man had been dead for ten years, she'd have been very young. Too young to have lived in the darkness.

"What… I mean how…" John wanted to ask her how she'd managed to make it ten years without blowing her head off. It was what he thought about constantly now.

She glanced away from the graves and at him. "I was broken after him. Shut myself off from everyone. Tried to go back to who I was before him. I thought that would make me stronger. Make it easier to through the pain."

That's what John had been doing. He wanted desperately to be more like Shaw, more like the man he had been, who didn't have to feel emotions.

"It didn't work," she told him. "I started acting recklessly. My partner got fed up with me one day… I'd chased our suspect into a busy street. The guy had run across and I went after him. Craig was calling me and calling me, telling me to let him go. That we could get him again, but I wouldn't listen. I almost made it across and when I got hit by a car. I mean, the driver had noticed people running across the road, but it had hurt like a son of a bitch, nut I was up and ready to go afterwards. But it was as if that was the straw that broke the camel's back, because it wasn't the dumbest thing I had done since the funeral. Craig had it out with me. Told me to stop acting like a child. That if I didn't do something about my behaviour, he'd report me. I told him to go right ahead and do it."

John thought about his recent numbers, the lengths he'd gone through to save the ones he had done. Even Shaw had told him to get his head out of his arse because his moves had been stupid. Fusco had yelled at him and Finch kept reminding him to be careful.

"It's just easier to take the risks because you just don't care anymore," he replied.

"Exactly. The world has ended and nobody else has noticed."

They sat in silence for a while, just staring at their respective gravesites. The minutes passed for them as they were lost in their own little worlds.

"Did it help?" she asked.

"Did what help?"

"Being there, being with her to say goodbye?"

"No," he replied. "You just feel helpless that there's nothing you could do."

She nodded. "Ok… I just… I wondered… and…"

"It's ok," he replied. "Did you… I mean, did you ever think he was standing with you… and…" he trailed off, it sounded stupid to him.

"And had a conversation?" she asked. "Yeah, for months afterwards… Around the anniversary too. We'd talk about anything and everything. Hell, I'd even talk about my cases with him, get his thoughts on them… I mean, it was probably my subconscious telling me things that I already knew, but it felt good."

"I see her… When I'm alone… We say the things we never got a chance to say… I tell her about my day… Or about her son and it's like everything is right in the world, but then I look away…"

"And she's gone…" Lu finished for him. "And it hits you, all over again."

He nodded solemnly and they fell back into the comfortable silence that they kept lapsing into, where their own thought swirled in their heads and memories pressed against them, threatening to steal their breaths away.

"Does it get better?" he asked.

"Depends," she replied.

"On what?"

"On who's there for you," she told him. "J.T wasn't the first person I'd loved and lost. Each time it was different. Each time took less time or more time. But as time went on, I seemed to collect these friends who wouldn't let me go. Who despite how much I pushed them away, kept trying to pull me back to them."

"I've got friends like that," he admitted.

"That's good," she replied.

"But I keep ignoring their calls. Telling them to bugger off and leave me alone."

"Yep."

"Yet they keep coming," he admitted.

"They care for you. And if they cared for her, then maybe they want to lean on you at the same time as being someone for you to lean on," she explained. "It doesn't help to go it alone."

"And yet we try it every time."

Lu nodded in agreement. "Because our grief is all consuming. We don't want to know what's going on with everyone else. We don't want to understand how they can get out of bed each morning and put a smile on their face and carry on as though nothing ever happened."

"God I miss her," John admitted. "So much…"

"It's ok to admit that… It's even ok to cry, no matter how strong you want everyone to believe you are," Lu told him. "It took me a long time to realise that. And a lot of people can tell you all of this. I bet everyone at some point or another, has already told you everything I've said. But it won't matter until you're ready to accept it."

"So what do I do until then?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I don't know... don't get killed doing reckless things."

"I've always been reckless," he said. "She's the one that made me stop and think before I acted."

"So? Let her guide you still," Lu suggested. "You already know what she'd say to you. I bet you thought of her kicking your arse for doing something stupid even when she wasn't there to do it in person."

He nodded reluctantly. "I guess…"

"She can still be your guiding light, or whatever you want to call it."

John nodded. It wasn't untrue what she said, it was just something he'd never thought about. Joss was a part of him now. She had been since that very first day when she'd asked him if he needed any help. He looked at the woman beside him. "Thank you," he told her.

"You're welcome… And thank you for earlier."

"Any time," he told her.

They stood, as if by mutual agreement. She smiled at him, but didn't say goodbye as she turned away. She topped, then turned back to him. "What was her name?" she asked.

John had been watching, intent on reaching for his phone, which was buzzing again. "Carter. Jocelyn Carter."

"I would have liked the opportunity to have met her," Lu said. "Goodbye John."

"And I'd have liked to have met your J.T," he told her. "Goodbye Lu."

This tie, Lu did walk away, leaving John standing by a seat on a small hill looking out over a sea of gravestones of fallen officers of the law. He tapped his ear.

"Yes Finch?"

"A Mister Reese," Finch said, obviously surprised to have had his call connected. "We have a new number."

"Send me the details," John told him.

"The number is for a man named Nelson Harris. He's currently enjoying the hospitality of the Federal Penitentiary Pelican Bay."

"And he's our number how?" John asked.

"Because our real number, does not have a social security number, or at least not according to Ms Groves."

"You're taking Root's word on this?"

"I'm inclined to believe her Mister Reese," Finch explained. "Of the people responsible for Mister Harris's arrest, one of them is already dead, an FIB agent by the name of Jedidiah Tyson Lewis," The name sounded familiar, but Reese couldn't place it. "The other was a young woman, and Australian named Tallulah Price. Ms Price is a Detective Sergeant now with the Victoria Police and in New York for the next three days."

John looked down at his phone as a picture of the Detective appeared on his phone and he felt his heart skip a beat before he looked towards where he'd seen Lu go. "I've already seen her," he told Finch. "She went to Lewis's grave. I helped her fight off two thugs."

"Mister Reese. This man has been waiting ten years to kill this woman. Find her. He will without a doubt he'll have more people trying to kill her during the time she'd in the city."

"On it," Reese acknowledged, then took off running in the direction the Australian had gone. This was not a job he'd hand over to Shaw or Fusco. In the time that he'd spoken with her, he'd felt a kinship. He wouldn't let her die, not after her words had helped him. And maybe, over the next three days, she would share some more of her wisdom with him.

John saw her get into a car, most likely a rental and followed the path down to the road, "Lu!" he called. She looked up and saw him.

"What?"

"Those thugs," he stated. "Any idea what they wanted?"

"Most likely to kill me," she said.

"Mind if I hang around?" he asked. "Make sure that doesn't happen."

She thought about it for a moment. "Ok. Why not."

Reese walked over and got into the passenger side of the car. He decided to introduce himself properly. "I'm John Reese," he said.

"Tallulah Price," she returned.

"So, where to first?" John asked.

She eyed him seriously. "Breakfast of course. Do you know how shitty the bagels are in Melbourne?"

As she started the car, he laughed. It was his first real laugh since that night and he knew, that no matter what happened next, he would always be appreciative of this woman, for reminding him what was important in this world.

Maybe, just maybe, that bullet with his name on it, could wait.


End file.
